Victorian - Dressing Tables

Learn about Dressing Table

A table or cabinet fitted with mirrors, small drawers and compartments, used especially by ladies at their toilette. There have been many variations over the past two centuries. The great 18th century designers delighted in contriving elegant tables, ingeniously fitted with all kinds of sliding and hidden mirrors, drawers and cosmetic boxes. Some versions had small bookshelves and drawers in the superstructure, while others were plainer, square tables, with fold over lids which, when opened, revealed the mirrors and compartments.

Victorian dressing tables followed the prevailing fashions of the various revival styles, although the form became established as a table supported by scroll, turned or cabriole legs, with an oval or square mirror and a series of small drawers known as a Duchess dressing table. Another version consisted of two pedestals, fitted with drawers on either side of a cheval mirror.

Edwardian dressing tables were usually plainer, with typical turned legs, squarer lines and sometimes containing wing mirrors. more...These Edwardian pieces usually contain sections of machine-made carving, based on the acanthus leaf, sometimes in conjunction with various Neoclassical devices such as the broken pediment, shallow reeding and so on.

The revival of the Queen Anne style in the 20th century saw many dressing tables in ash or maple made with cabriole legs and plate glass mirrors. They are usually stained a revolting scarlet described by the manufacturers as 'mahogany'.

A Victorian walnut veneer dressing table, circa1860s, a fine bowfront shaped table having an oval mirror with foliate and pierced scroll supports above a shaped hinged compartment flanked by two pillars each with two small drawers, the table with a single

A good Victorian burr walnut twin pedestal dressing table, the mirror with arched top and scrolling frieze pediment supported on two ornate scrolling supports, the two pedestals with five graduating drawers each with two bun handles, a lower single drawer

A Victorian mahogany dressing table, circa: 1870s, a 'D' shaped table with an arched mirror between pierced decorative supports, a roll front compartment flanked by plinths each with three cockbeaded drawers, a frieze drawer and upon bold reeded ca

A Victorian mahogany dressing table, circa: 1870s, of curvaceous breakfront form with a quatrefoil shaped mirror between pierced decorative supports, and upon a shaped compartment with three drawers, the base with a frieze drawer and upon generous cabriole

A Victorian mahogany dressing table, last quarter 19th century, the shaped top mounted with a gallery of small drawers and enclosed compartment and a crested mirror swinging between carved supports, with a central frieze drawer, on turned and gadrooned fro

A good Victorian mahogany dressing table, 1870s/'80s, the semi-circular top with a gallery of small drawers and a mirror in a crested and moulded frame swinging between a pair of carved scrolling supports, with a small frieze drawer, on turned supports wit

A good Victorian walnut dressing table, James Shoolbred & Co., London, 1870s/'80s, the rectangular top with a gallery of two small drawers supporting the original bevelled mirror in a swinging crested and moulded frame, with a pair of frieze drawers, raise

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